Friday, September 30, 2005

Brian owes me $1000


Three years ago Brian and I were on our way home after a night of drinks with Kluwer folk. At Penn Station, it was awhile til our trains, so we went into the Houlihan's there for one more. So while in Houlihan's we were discussing the state of my love life. And Brian says, "You know Jenny, the next man you're with, I think he's going to be the one. You'll be engaged, off the market." "Brian," I said, "As good as that sounds, I just don't see it happening." "Yes, he says, adamant. "I think that's what's going to happen." You all know what happens next. This escalates and eventually a wager is made. Brian bet me $1000 that I 'd be engaged by October of 2005. Hard to believe that was three years ago, but it was. Now October is one day away, and I don't even have a boyfriend.

So Brian, it's almost time to pony up. I know that your argument will be that October is not out yet - so I'll happily wait until November 1st to be paid. But I suggest that you spend the next month figuring out how you are going to come up with this money. If you put away thirty bucks every day for the whole month - there you go. Or, if you pay me in euros it's only 831.00 with the exchange rate.

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Guys I Made the Black List Again

Check it:

http://blacktable.com/blacklist050928.htm

It's nice to have a place to complain - better yet, a place that asks you to send your complaints - fun!

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

NYC Mayoral race

One of the big New York headlines today is that Democratic mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer lied about having attended public school as a kid - when in actuality he attended parochial school. The Bloomberg campaign first found this on a blog of Ferrer's - and apparently the lie was written by the candidate himself. Now the news (that I watched last night) went on to say that Ferrer also said that his daughter graduated from public school, when she actually attended the same parochial school as him.

All of this makes me think that Ferrer does not know the difference between private and public school, and that makes me afraid to vote for him in November. Frankly, it makes me afraid for the next five years.

Monday, September 26, 2005

Celtic Fest!

I'm just back from a delightful weekend with Beth in Allentown. This weekend was Celtic fest, so Beth and I headed to Bethlehem to partake in the festivities. We spent the bulk of Saturday watching bagpipe bands - Beth liked the drummers who twirled their sticks "Twirly guy! That band has two twirly guys!" And making fun of the meticulous judges. Then we watched Irish stepdancing for a long while - loving the music and the cute little girls and their bouncy curly hair. It was a fun day, and it makes me remember why I love being Irish.

Friday, September 23, 2005

In Case of Emergency

In the past five years - America has been treated to one emergency situation after another. First 9/11. Then two years later, the blackout - well, for us east coasters anyway. Now, the craziest hurricane season anyone's seen...well...ever. And I'm starting to learn a couple of things that I should always do, in case of emergency:

1. Keep sneakers under my desk at work. Whether it be terrorist attacks or blackouts, at some point, I will probably need to walk home to Queens again.

2. Always have a decent amount of cash in my wallet. I had less than twenty during the blackout - and my ATM card and credit cards were pretty useless then, weren't they?

3. Keep my car full of more than half a tank of gas. Increasingly expensive - but worth it. Look at these poor people in Texas right now - trying to flee Rita, and either not being able to find gas and dry stations or running out of it on the freeway.

4. Make sure there is always food and water in my house. After the mess that New Orleans was - I'd better make sure that there's enough stuff for me to live on for three weeks - at least.

5. Keep my land line phone - no matter how annoying expensive it is. Like my credit cards, cell phones become useless pretty fast during the blackout when the lines got jammed, same with 9/11. And how glad was I that my stupid kitchen phone is on the wall - all those cordless ones - no dice.

Crazy. Just hope that Rita tires herself out in the Gulf and that when she gets to Texas, things won't be that bad.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Fall TV line up

Summer's just about over (no matter what the temperature still is) and all of the new TV shows are coming on, and some are coming back on - blah blah blah. Since I'm broke from my vacationn (and in general) I intend to do some serious hibernating. Here's what I'll be watching this season if I'm home on these particular nights:

Monday nights: Las Vegas - NBC, 9 p.m. EST
Tuesday nights: House - FOX, 9 p.m. EST
Wednesday nights: The Apprentice: Martha Stewart NBC, 8 p.m., EST and Lost - ABC 9 p.m. EST
Thursday nights: The Apprentice - NBC 9 p.m. EST

(It's a good thing they moved Lost to 9 on Wednesdays, otherwise Martha wouldn't make the cut. and she might not stay there if the show sucks. Okay guys, now you've got the schedule. Nobody call me between 9 and 10 every night. Seriously. Okay?

Friday, September 16, 2005

Whale Watching in Iceland


Flight to Scandinavia: $750 on Mastercard
Hotel/Apartment rental in Reykjavik: $195 a night on Mastercard
Half a tank a gas for the car: $60 on Mastercard
Ticket for a Whale Watching excursion: $60 on Mastercard

Taking this fabulous upclose and personal award-winning photo of a whale: Priceless.

There are some things money can't buy. Thank God, for everything else, there's Mastercard.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Book review time


It's time for another book review...it's been awhile since I posted one. I read "Until I Find You" while I was on vacation. I saved it for vacation because I new that parts of it took place in Scandinavia and I thought it would be cool to be reading about Copenhagen while in Copenhagen. I usually always enjoy John Irving - as weird as some of his characters/plots are - they are intriguing and enveloping. This book is eight hundred pages, and I read it in three and a half days. Couldn't put it down. I highly highly recommend this one.

Oh, and a cookie goes anyone who can tell me how many times the word "penis" appears in this book.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Holy crap

So Mandy and I rented a car when we were in Iceland because frankly, there really aren't too many public transportation options, and the Blue Lagoon is in the middle of nowhere. So groovy. We get a Nissan something-or-other. The car only had a half a tank of gas when they gave it to us since it had just come back and they didn't have time to fill it up. So I figured we'd better just top it off since the Blue Lagoon is forty minutes from Reykjavik - and I figured I had to leave room for getting lost - shrug.

I just looked at my credit card statement this morning and discovered that a half a tank of gas in Iceland cost me $60.00! Whoa! And I thought $3.25 a gallon was bad in Queens.

We had better start seriously analyzing old episodes of Star Trek to see if teleportation is really possible.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Copenhagen



They say that Copenhagen was once the fairy tale capital of the world. In ways, it still is. Remnants of Hans Christian Andersen are everywhere - he is a Danish Hero. Their main attraction is a greenish smallish statue of the "Little Mermaid" based on Andersen's story. The buildings are freshly painted in a neat row in Nyhavn (pictured here) in bright canary yellows, denim blues and brick reds.

What I liked about Copenhagen was the way that you could sit outside and eat lunch at Nyhavn and people watch. You drink cold pints of Carlsberg beer while you ate. You could wrap yourself in a green fleece blanket if you got cold at the outdoor table - the restaurants leave blankets on the chairs just for this purpose. I liked that after lunch, everyone seemed to get an ice cream cone and walk up and down Nyhavn with it.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip, and Nyhavn was definetely the prettiest part.

Celebrities suck

Okay guys! I'm back from my vacation so the blogs begin again. Now I'll be posting stuff about my vacation complete with some picks - but first I just had to say - celebrities suck.

I read somewhere that when they were making that stupid movie "Guess Who" with Bernie Mac & Ashton Kutcher (I saw it on the plane - I had no choice but to watch it!) - that the movie people had to digitally remove Ashton's red Kaballah bracelet from every single scene he shot, at the cost of $100,000.

Ashton? Get over yourself. The rest of us all have to dress appropriately for our jobs. I would like to wear sneakers every day to my office - but it is just not acceptable for me to do so. And I would think that since you are getting paid way more money to do your job than I am - that you can do without your little red yarn bracelet while you are filming. Trust me - God will understand.

I knew I hated Ashton Kutcher.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

More Thoughts on New Orleans

I haven't stopped thinking about the place since I heard the hurricane was coming - since I heard that it was going to be bad. And there's two people that share my fondness for the place, Chuck and Karen. Since the storm hit we have been writing back and forth, sharing bits of information and thoughts about the place...as I knew we would. Today Karen sent an excerpt from a novel by Valerie Martin - and I wanted to post it here:

"It is an odd sensation to recognize in oneself the need to be in a particular physical environment, when one longs for the home ground no matter how terrible the memories it holds, no matter how great the efforts to leave it behind. So I have left this city again and again and thought myself lucky to escape its allure, for it's the attraction of decay, of vicious, florid, natural cycles that roll over the senses with their lushness. Where else could I find these hateful, humid, murderously hot afternoons when I know that the past was a series of great mistakes, the greatest being the inability to live anywhere besides this swamp? I can't do without those little surges of joy at the sight of a chameleon, of a line of dark clouds moving beneath the burning blue of the sky. I am comforted by the threatening encumbrance of moss on trees, the thick, sticky plantain trees than can grow from their chopped roots twenty feet in three months, the green scum that spreads over the lagoons and bayous, the colorful conversation of the lazy, suspicious, pleasure-loving populous. I don't think I will leave the city again.
 
The plague continues, neither in nor out of control, but we have been promised a vaccine that will solve all our problems. We go on without it, and life is not intolerable. Our city is an island, physically and psychologically; we are tied to the rest of the country only by our own endeavor. The river from which we drink drains a continent; it has to be purified for days before we can stomach it. We smile to ourselves when people from more fashionable centers find us provincial, for if we are free of one thing, it's fashion. The future holds a simple promise. We are well below sea level, and inundation is inevitable. We are content, now, to have our heads above water."